CHRIS CODUTO/Arizona Daily Wildcat A modest crowd of 23,531 fans, the smallest of the season, watches the Arizona Cardinals defeat the Cincinnati Bengals, 17-14 on Sunday.

Two professional Arizona sports teams. Two teams on the rise. Two teams with a drastic difference in fan support.

The Phoenix Suns and the Arizona Cardinals.

The Suns have suffered two narrow defeats in their first three regular-season games. But the young, enthusiastic franchise is optimistic that it can capitalize on last year's 44-win campaign, in which it nearly pushed the eventual NBA champion San Antonio Spurs to a decisive seventh game in the first round of the playoffs.

Despite his usual habit of wheeling and dealing between seasons, Suns owner Jerry Colangelo opted to keep his star players, along with much of the supporting cast, in Phoenix for 2003-04.

Suns starting center Jake Voskuhl believes the team will benefit from Colangelo's rare restraint.

"I think there's good chemistry among the team and I think that it shows on the court, and I think that (Colangelo) definitely made a good decision," Voskuhl said. "Sometimes there might be better teams, but they don't have the chemistry that your team has, and I think that makes a difference on the court."

That chemistry was apparent Saturday night, as the Suns used a boisterous Phoenix crowd to erase a 13-point first-half deficit against the Los Angeles Lakers. Ex-Jazz forward Karl Malone, the NBA's No. 2 all-time point-scorer, who signed with the Lakers this summer, said the Suns will benefit from retaining last year's core group.

"It's always an advantage to have the same guys together for a lot of years," Malone said.

"Any team that keeps a group of guys like that together should benefit," added 16-year veteran and Lakers forward Horace Grant.

Former Seattle Sonics guard Gary Payton, who led the Sonics in assists from 1990-2002 and also signed with the Lakers in the off-season, was impressed with what he saw from the Suns on Saturday.

"They're a good team," Payton acknowledged. "They're aggressive, they're very athletic, they play hard, (and) they don't quit. They're gonna be a team to be reckoned with this season."

A 3-pointer by third-year guard Joe Johnson gave the Suns their first lead of the game with just over three minutes to play - putting the crowd in a frenzy and causing Lakers coach Phil Jackson to call a timeout. Though the Lakers eventually won in the final seconds, Payton was sold on the Suns' talent.

"A lot of teams are gonna find out that they're gonna pull out wins like that in the end," he said.

Even Shaquille O'Neal, the NBA's Most Valuable Player in 2000, was impressed with the ferocity of Phoenix.

"They're a good, young, aggressive team and they're a little faster this year," Shaq noted.

Former Phoenix head coach Cotton Fitzsimmons, who now serves as the Suns' senior executive vice president, saw Colangelo's lack of off-season activity as a breath of fresh air in a sport where players are constantly on the move.

"You have to have a team that's been together a lot, not just for their chemistry, but for the fans," Fitzsimmons said. "Fans get tired of seeing guys come and go and come and go, and have to have a (new) program for every game. So I think it's better this way."

Shane Dale Assistant Sports Editor

The Suns did make several adjustments to their bench roster in both the summer and preseason, but Phoenix guard Penny Hardaway reiterated that the most important thing was that the heart of the team remained together.

"We still have a long way to go because we're still adding a lot of new guys to the team, but our core - the starting five, myself, Googs (forward Tom Gugliotta) - we're all pretty close and we just have to keep working together to get better," Hardaway said.

The Suns seem well on their way to doing so, especially if they continue to enjoy the same rambunctious home crowd that they did Saturday night. Though there were plenty of Laker fans in attendance, the Phoenix partisan did all they could to drown out the L.A. faithful.

"Our fans overpowered theirs, so it helped, you know, motivate us and get back into the game and almost have a chance to win at the end," Hardaway said.

The Suns played in front of a near-sellout crowd of 18,422 at America West Arena Saturday night - almost as many as the Cardinals played in front of at Sun Devil Stadium, capacity 73,234, the next day. It seems few have taken notice that the Cardinals have won two games in a row for the first time this season - and that running back Marcel Shipp has strung together a pair of noteworthy performances in the desert.

Filling in for the injured Emmitt Smith, Shipp has compiled 306 rushing yards the past two weeks in the Cardinals' victories over San Francisco and Cincinnati. The humble, soft-spoken third-year back couldn't help but smile when I informed him after Sunday's game that he was the first Cardinal in 11 years to rush for over 100 yards in consecutive games.

"I really wasn't aware of that," Shipp said. "That's good news, I guess."

Though he's only been the starting halfback in Arizona's last three games, Shipp has already gained more than twice as many yards as Smith - the NFL's all-time leading rusher - has in five.

And though Shipp kept insisting that it would be up to Cardinals head coach Dave McGinnis to decide who would start once Smith was healthy, he said he'd obviously like to remain the team's feature back.

"Sure, it would be disappointing (to lose the starting job)," he said. "I wanna be out there all the time."

Journeyman quarterback Jeff Blake, a summer free-agent acquisition following the departure of QB Jake Plummer to Denver, has settled in nicely since the Cardinals' bye three weeks ago. Against the 49ers and Bengals, Blake completed 32 of 52 passes - a 62 percent completion percentage - threw for two touchdowns, ran for another and didn't throw an interception.

"Jeff Blake is a veteran; he's brought great leadership to this football team," McGinnis said. "He's still got his best game out there in front of him, I feel."

In Arizona's first six games, Blake threw nine passes to the wrong team. But before the Cardinals' bye week, he promised he wouldn't throw another pick for awhile.

"He didn't lie, did he?" asked McGinnis.

The empty seats at Sun Devil Stadium haven't been a wet blanket on the Cards' recent success, according to Arizona's outspoken, energetic coach, who was appreciative of the 23,531 who came out to support his team.

"I was very proud of the fans that were out there today," McGinnis said. "(They) were absolutely tremendous."

Though they lost last season's top three receivers to free agency, the Cardinals' passing game hasn't missed a beat in 2003, thanks to the play of rookie receiver Anquan Boldin.

The second-round draft pick is the early favorite to win 2003 Rookie of the Year honors. Through eight games, Boldin is sixth in the NFL with 672 receiving yards, and tied for sixth in receptions with 48.

Boldin said the lack of fan support doesn't faze him.

"We would like more people in the stands, but I don't care," he said. "If we have five people (in the crowd), I don't care. We gotta come out and perform."

Blake put the onus on himself and his team to replace those empty seats with fans bleeding Cardinal red.

"It'll fill up," he said. "If we keep winning, it'll fill up."